Madison County was not alone in finishing early voting behind its 2018 pace. Across much of rural West Tennessee, early turnout grew more slowly this year than it did statewide, according to figures from the Tennessee Secretary of State's final early-voting report as tallied by the news site Daily Deskline.
Counting the 20 West Tennessee counties outside Shelby, early and absentee voting reached 98,288. That is up about 29 percent from 76,324 in 2022, but well short of the roughly 45 percent statewide gain. Compared with 2018, when 116,043 voted early in the same counties, the total is down about 15 percent, roughly double the statewide drop.
Counties near the bottom
Several of Jackson's neighbors ranked near the bottom of the state's 95 counties for growth since 2022. Decatur County was up just 3.4 percent, which ranked 94th. Carroll County rose 7.6 percent, Chester County 7.8 percent, McNairy County 7.8 percent and Lake County 8.4 percent. Dyer County's 15.5 percent increase also landed in the bottom ten.
The comparison with 2018 was starker in some places. Henderson County's early vote was down about 27 percent and Carroll County's was down about 25 percent, both among the ten steepest declines in Tennessee. Crockett County was down about 24 percent and Dyer County about 23.5 percent.
The exceptions
Haywood and Fayette counties went the other way. Haywood's early vote rose nearly 59 percent over 2022, the seventh-largest gain in the state, and Fayette's rose nearly 57 percent, ninth in the state. Fayette's 9,593 early voters were also one of only 14 counties statewide to beat their 2018 pace, by less than half a percent. Shelby County, the state's largest, recorded 183,896 early voters, up about 52 percent from 2022 and about 2.5 percent behind 2018.
Not the final word
Early voting is only part of the picture. The totals count voters rather than votes, and a quiet early period can be offset by a busy Election Day. West Tennessee polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central time on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Sources: Daily Deskline, Tennessee Secretary of State turnout reports as cited by Daily Deskline, Tennessee Lookout